Honey's Farm by Iris Gower

it was as much my fault as yours. What are you doing in Swansea?’ Eline spoke warmly; she had always liked the quiet, shy, youngest daughter of Nina Parks.
    â€˜I brought Patrick here for some new boots,’ Fon said, drawing the child close to her skirts. ‘He’s growing so fast that nothing lasts him very long.’
    Eline remembered then that Fon was now a married woman, wife of Jamie O’Conner, the handsome Irishman who had bought Honey’s Farm, the very farm where Eline was born.
    Fon looked well; her skin held the bloom of a life led in the open air, her eyes were bright, her smile ready, and Eline felt herself envying the girl.
    â€˜How are you enjoying farm life?’ she asked, and Fon’s smile widened.
    â€˜It’s hard work but it’s where I belong, with my husband,’ she said simply.
    Eline wondered that a girl brought up to live at the edge of the sea could adapt so easily to a life of hardship in the fields, of long days, sometimes of sleepless nights when the lambing season came. But then, Fon loved her husband and a woman would do anything for love.
    â€˜No problems, then?’ Eline asked, and she saw a frown crease the fine skin of Fon’s forehead.
    â€˜There’s been some trouble with the cows,’ Fon said. ‘Some sickness that made the beasts throw their young too soon, but I think the worst is over now.’
    Eline knew the sickness well; it was something most farmers dreaded. ‘You didn’t have to slaughter the animals, then?’ she asked in concern, knowing what such a loss could mean.
    Fon shook her head. ‘Jamie cared for the poor creatures, looked after them as if they were babbies,’ she explained. ‘And now they seem to be better. At any rate he’s putting them to the bull again, and the first one to recover is in calf already.’ She spoke proudly, as though the achievement was shared with her; and so it probably was, Eline thought.
    Suddenly, her strivings at the gallery seemed so trivial. Here was Fon facing real problems day by day, alongside the man she loved, and Eline was stuck with selling pictures that merely mirrored life when life was to be lived to the dregs, even though they might be bitter.
    Her mind, in that instant, was made up. She would sell the gallery, or at least bring in a manager. She would rearrange her life, give herself something to strive for. She was tired of the blandness of her day-to-day activities, for the gallery practically ran itself; there was no longer any excitement, any challenge left to stimulate her in mind.
    â€˜I’d better be going,’ Fon was saying. ‘I’ve got plenty of work to do when I get back home.’ Her face softened. ‘And Jamie, my husband, will be getting anxious.’
    Eline watched as Fon led the small boy along the street. She who was going home to where she was needed, to where her presence mattered.
    A great loneliness swept over Eline; she was not needed by anyone, she had no-one who would know or even care if she stayed out all day and all night too. Her shoulders were slumped in an attitude of despair as she walked unseeing along the hot pavements to the town.
    People – there were people in her life, of course, there were her customers, her neighbours in Oystermouth. There was Penny, who cared for her needs and was concerned with her well-being; but she wanted more than that, she wanted to belong somewhere, to someone, to Will Davies.
    â€˜Will,’ she whispered, ‘why did you go away and leave me?’
    But there was no answer to her question. There were only the everyday noises of a busy street, a street on which Eline was totally alone.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    It did not take Eline long to put her plans into action. Her first task was to find a suitable person to take over the gallery, and this turned out to be much easier than she’d anticipated. She had for some time been aware of the admiration of